Comparison of System Properties for Wave-Front Holographic Printers

A conventional analog hologram displays highly realistic 3D images of objects. A holographic printer can record such a hologram onto a holographic emulsion from digital contents. Various holographic printers for recording a holographic stereogram, a fringe pattern or a wave-front have been developed for the recent two decades [1-4]. Multiple perspectives of the scene are used as contents for holographic stereogram recording, and an observer perceives a 3D object by binocular vision. However, the acquired perspectives have longitudinal magnification distortion caused by camera geometry that leads to the distorted 3D space representation over the displayed hologram. Thus the holographic stereogram may not be suitable for specific applications which require actual size display. The fringe printer records computer generated fringe patterns onto a holographic emulsion without any reference wave, and the printed hologram is a thin diffractive optical element which provides non-distorted 3D reconstruction but without color selectivity. The wave-front printing technique overcomes these drawbacks - longitudinal magnification distortion and lack of color selectivity – and makes a wave-front printer a desirable choice of a holographic printer. Two wave-front printers have been recently independently designed [1,2] and the aim of this paper is to analyze and compare their properties.